Read this in one day - could not put it down. I try, on and off, to write about a sociopath I encountered, who, like Oliver, grew up in institutions. It's not easy to inspire a smidge of empathy for a killer, but @liznugent.bsky.social pulls it off beautifully here.

Bushby said he has learned a lot over the past nearly three decades, but one thing stands out: “99.99 percent of the people I’ve met have been the very best in humanity,” he said. “The world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.” www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/20...

Mentally ill husband plans family murder-suicide, partly succeeding. A journey through love, searing loss, and beyond. Compassionate and completely absorbing. @cmgleeson.bsky.social your Irish Book Award is richly deserved!

So the Hamptons and NYC night scene haven't changed in 40 years. Great read, TY Rob Franklin. This, along with much else, struck a chord: 'But exuberant expressions of rage seemed to him mere admissions of one's vulnerability, the power the other still held. He'd withhold them.'

www.independent.ie/entertainmen... BE to DM: People want to see dog shit on the road and step in it, so they can be annoyed or offended DM: ...People really, really wanting to say who they are by screaming at whatever shit they’ve stepped in and saying: ‘I’m not that.’

Thank you @jackielynam.bsky.social for your excellent chat with @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social and Donal Ryan at Write By The Sea today. The perfect light but firm, well-informed touch!

The power of the novel... I'd read/heard plenty about Ireland's 'mother and baby home' genocides, but it took this book for me to really feel the enormity of it. 'The further the girl was from poverty, the closer her child was to living. Death wasn't random.' My aunt's child lived.

'We had more children ... so as not to have to spend so much time together. Had we liked each other less we'd have had four, five. There's nothing like love's dilution to keep things in proportion.'

I couldn't put this down... I first heard about American nurses in the Vietnam War from a really sweet lady (a volunteer at my local library) who served there. In awe that she lived through such horror and somehow regained her lovely disposition in the years since.

I feel like I know this pub... 'Brendan drank in McCrink's every night where the clientele were already dead to themselves, their elegies long written in the heartbreak of their wives and children and their own brokenness.'

Drone by Solmaz Sharif www.divasofverse.com/2019/02/dron...

I had a theory on who Liadan might be... less certain after reading this, they come across as much more polite than the writer I had in mind. Great stories, the gut-wrenching devastation, quietly told, stays with you.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. Unquestionably the most useful book for writers I’ve read in a long time.

Taking a little break from Wimbledon

But no session moths spotted??

'He took off his hat and hung it on a peg in her entrance-hall which was the shape and size of a small kitchen table, and from the ceiling of which hung a crystal chandelier.'

Pulled this off my shelf a couple of nights ago. Lovely, sweet stories, set in Cumbria's becks and fells, perfect antidote to the daily news. Thank you Jane Gardam, may you rest in peace.

Delighted to have a piece in Issue 23 here, at p.43 www.thewellsstreetjournal.com/past-issues-1

'Cynics see social problems, but [no] solutions. [I]f you think our problems [are] who we are, why do anything about it? So cynics end up voting less often ... protesting less often ... people who benefit from a population that doesn't trust itself are often autocrats and authoritarians.' Ouch!

'the philosophers were wrong and the meaning of life is not that it ends but that your one job on earth is to make everyone as miserable as your own sad self.' - a piece on our current leadership?? No - it's from Aria Aber's lyrical novel, anyone who was a wild child will love this, set in Berlin:

We need you now more than ever, Tracy www.theguardian.com/music/2025/m...

Before the amazing Belfast writers now on the scene, there was the brilliant Robert McLiam Wilson. Keep a dictionary handy when reading Ripley Bogle. The erudition is way beyond mine - but that doesn't stop it being a great read.

Picked this up with no expectations, and find I can't put it down! Pure serendipity that it centers on a topic of great interest to me: a life derailed by an out-of-character moment, particularly in our age of cyber-bullying

Looking forward to reading @UGMAN

'These are sudden times' says a character. To which I can only reply, 'No kiddin'!'

Skelliging Day was still 'celebrated' in my hometown when I was a schoolgirl - it meant dodging posses of schoolboys looking for victims to tie to poles and throw eggs at. Never did buy that 'schooldays are the best days of your life' line... www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2...

Today, in a meeting at the White House, the only person actually defending American interests was Zelenskyy. Let that sink in.

'there is assertion and even aggression in chess and in the act of writing' Peter Bradshaw, reviewing a 2012 documentary I want to see www.theguardian.com/film/2012/ma...

Thank you, Kingston-upon-Thames jury, for having sense. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Just a reminder, Ireland - tiocfaidh an samhradh - summer will come...

Fay Weldon on husband-stealers: ‘The once-up-and-down look, the ‘Well, you’re no rival, you poor thing’ air, puts you on your guard: the cute leopard-print neck scarves, the little high heels, announce to everyone the would-be robber’s on her way.’ Oh dear, how my aunts loved those scarves!

I don't do many posters these days but here's a new one for UL Creative Writing Festival this year. Brilliant line up!

Powerful poem of the poor, everywhere, from Tangier poet Rachida Madani, translated by Marilyn Hacker. ('Shahrayar', vengeful one...) wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Any Vera fans out there? Brenda Blethyn, @stephmcgovern.bsky.social and I will be at Newcastle City Hall on March 13th to say goodbye to the show. Lots of special guests. And raise funds for the amazing Shiremoor Adventure Playground.

Thoroughly enjoyed this deep dive conversation about My Name is Lucy Barton and Strout’s influence on my work, with Princeton prof Sophie Gee and poetry lover & producer Jonty for @slobpodcast.bsky.social !

Jackie Kay, 2005

I love this piece.

'One of the more reliable chemical reactions in European culture occurs when particles of German mental matter enter Italy. Suddenly, German writers discover that life is worth living again, as they succumb to the view from the veranda.' Thomas Meaney www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Glossophobic? Brevity is the soul of wit. Old Niall Tóibín tale: timid UCC professor invited to the wilds of Dingle peninsula in the 1960s to lecture on marital sex at the Irish Countrywomen’s Assoc. He said: “It gives me great pleasure.” And sat down. from: www.independent.ie/opinion/comm...

Tuesday Morning, Kentish Town: a short story by the award-winning author Kevin Barry

‘curry favour’ from ‘curry Fauvel’ based on 14th century poem Roman de Fauvel. Fauvel (‘false veil’), a horse, became king and was curried (groomed) by the nobility and clergy; he wanted no dung to remain on him. Acronym of Flattery, Avarice, Vileness, Envy, Laxity Satirical prophecy?

'..how helpless desire is outside its little theater of heat, how ridiculous it becomes the moment it isn't welcomed, even if that welcome is contrived.' Universal truth from @garthgreenwell.bsky.social

Delighted to see my short story Shit Life Syndrome on 3:AM today. Been desperate to get this one out there and couldn't think of a better home. Shares appreciated for this; but only if you like it obviously 😆 www.3ammagazine.com/3am/shit-lif...

‘…when a man speaks from his heart, in his moment of truth, he speaks poetry. …embarrassment, self-consciousness, remembered criticisms, can stifle the average person so that less and less in his lifetime can he open himself out.’ Ray Bradbury's motivational musings and notes on craft:

Not sure a guide is needed. What’s your favorite? For me it’s my well-thumbed copy of ‘Walk The Blue Fields.’

personal news

On the land grab in the American West: 'You could take your slice. Those who had been dispossessed would forever remain so - this was the golden promise of the Republic.' Kevin Barry in his lyrical and wonderfully funny 'The Heart in Winter.'